Publication Date

Summer 7-28-2026

Abstract

This dissertation examines how Jicarilla Apache is learned, taught, and used across community life, with particular attention to contemporary language revitalization. Based on ethnographic research with elders, educators, language workers, families, and community institutions, it follows language practices across classrooms, culture camps, homes, ceremonial settings, and collaborative archival projects. I show that linguistic knowledge does not carry the same authority or consequences in every setting. Words may be recognized without being taken up, speakers may possess linguistic knowledge without being authorized to teach or correct, and archival texts may preserve linguistic forms without preserving the relations needed to interpret and respond to them. I develop the concept of consequentiality to describe the uneven conditions under which speech comes to bear on what participants may say or do next. I argue that learning, teaching, and revitalizing Jicarilla Apache involve more than transmitting linguistic forms: they also require sustaining and reestablishing the social, historical, and place-based relations through which language acquires authority and becomes consequential in practice.

Keywords

Jicarilla Apache, Native American language revitalization, language socialization, linguistic anthropology

Project Sponsors

National Science Foundation; Spencer Foundation; AREA; UNM Center for Regional Studies

Document Type

Dissertation

Language

English

Degree Name

Anthropology

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Anthropology

First Committee Member (Chair)

Catherine Rhodes

Second Committee Member

Melissa Axelrod (Co-chair)

Third Committee Member

David W. Dinwoodie

Fourth Committee Member

M. Eleanor Nevins

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